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Venerable Ajahn Sucitto -
Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension
In 1993, Ajahn Sucitto gave a series of classes at
Cittaviveka covering basic themes of meditation practice. This is the
first section of his talk.
In considering mindfulness and clear comprehension we see that these two
terms are often conjoined. They support and amplify each other.
Mindfulness is the ability to attend in a particular way, to turn the
mind on to something and feel it out. Clear comprehension is the thing
that helps to determine what we should be mindful of and how. These two
together form a helpful practice for the arising of understanding. There
are various techniques and ways in which to develop and cultivate
mindfulness, but sometimes what happens is that people consider
mindfulness to be developed only through refining the preliminary object
of meditation. For example, they may become attentive to particular
refined sensations – but what they really need to be mindful of is
motivation. A rather facile example might be that a person could be
mindful of the feelings in their hand, when maybe they should be more
mindful of the fact that they are holding a gun, with which they are
about to blow someone's brains out! In terms of meditation, motivation
can be corrupted with a kind of self-importance or alternatively
self-denial, and we tend to be mindful of things that accord with these
habits. So we recognise that clear comprehension is very important as a
determinant for mindfulness.
Mindfulness is also the power of the mind to attend objectively; the
mind just opens up to something, without any particular angle or any
particular ambition – and it's not in a hurry. When conjoined with clear
comprehension it is not dependent on the quality of the object, instead
it establishes a continuity of knowing attention. It has the quality of
dispassion, rather than attending only to things that we feel are
dramatic; therefore an important development of mindfulness is in its
extension.
Most of us can be fairly attentive to things when we are threatened or
in danger – then we become extremely attentive – but most of the time
there is no mindfulness. We live in a kind of fairly all right ordinary
state, or else things become habitual; we barely notice them because
we've got so used to them. Life seems to operate in terms of routines
and habits: the same place and the same people – things changing very
slowly – same old body doing more or less the same things every day. So
we need skill to develop mindfulness in this, because normally the mind
is only attentive to things that are dramatic, painful, searing or
intense, wonderful or luminous.
Such a bias affects our meditation, and so we feel that we can't be
mindful because we can't find anything special to be mindful of. We can
tend to imagine that mindfulness is a state of being concentrated on an
object, so that if we're fully concentrated upon the breath or upon a
sensation then we're very mindful of it. But concentration without
mindfulness is fixation, rather than samådhi: it doesn't take into
account an awareness of the mind's responses to an object, so only a
fraction of the mind gets involved. Limiting mindfulness in this way is
also unproductive if, for most of the day, we can't be mindful of
breathing in and out because of being occupied with other things. It's
not possible to have mindfulness in a controlled way, because life tends
to be multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. We are always going from the
eyes to the ears, to the brain and the body and then back to the brain,
the thoughts and memories. The attention has to keep swivelling around
in order to function with things. However we can be mindful of the
awareness (citta) which receives impressions and comes up with skilful
responses, so flexibility in choosing a suitable place for attention is
very useful. The reason that often people feel that they can't be
mindful is that they can't relate mindfulness to the active states of
consciousness when the mind is moving around, but this is getting
confused between mindfulness and the ordinary understanding of
concentration.
Concentration alone does tend to alter the consciousness: it makes it
become more refined and take on the quality of what is concentrated on.
So if we concentrate on beautiful music then we may feel very patriotic,
or romantic, or excited – the mind takes on that particular mood. If we
concentrate on a calm sign, like breathing, the mind becomes calm; but
it tends to fix on that, and then when we can't concentrate on the
breath we're all at sea again. Even if we can sustain it over a long
period of time, which is difficult, that practice tends to make the mind
take on the quality of the thing that it's conjoined with and not much
more. So in terms of our `view' or perspective, we remain very much
affected by whatever we are in contact with. For much of the day most
people have to be in contact with things like newspapers, traffic,
duties, telephones, so then if we're just concentrating, associating the
mind with the thing it is conjoined with, it gets very agitated and
frazzled. Even in meditation, unless it comes through mindfulness,
concentration will not be endowed with the skilful mental attributes
that ripen to give rise to samådhi.
Mindfulness has the ability to notice something dispassionately and to
maintain a state of coolness, of dispassion, by referring to and working
with the mind's responses; this is a highly focused but not fixated
state. For example, on hearing a sound we can notice what that sound
does to us. When we hear a powerful sound, like a chainsaw or some
machine screeching away, we can feel the mind tensing up. But then if
we're mindful, keeping a sense of coolness about that, the mind actually
relaxes; we hear the sound simply as a sound, and we don't get this
build-up of stress. So in some ways, although it's rather undramatic,
this is a very valuable practice. Now we're not saying, "The way to
meditate is to go and listen to a chainsaw" or, "Go and sit in front of
a spin drier all day long", but it's a way of dismantling the
compulsiveness – the ways that we get caught with things – not by
antagonism, but by just staying objective and dispassionate. With an
unpleasant experience, the mind habitually tenses up and to tries to
push the feeling away, but with a pleasant sound or taste the mind tends
to go towards it and tries to hold on to it and linger in it, or gobble
it up. But then, through simply noticing that, we begin to find a sense
of calm composure in ourselves so that, no matter what comes into
consciousness, we are able to register it for what it is and to maintain
the emotional mood of dispassion, of objectivity. We see that whatever
we experience comes, and then goes. It has the nature to arise, and then
cease. It is impermanent, it's transient. Now although that's a very
obvious statement, it's not an obvious experience. Most of us don't
experience the ending of something. When something ends the mind jumps
to the next thing. We don't notice a sound fading away. Instead, we
notice the sound and we think about it, and then either forget it as we
go on to something else, or the mind argues with it and proliferates
around it: "Oh that's very nice, I wonder where that's coming from." Or
with a smell, you think, "That's a nice smell, that reminds me of so and
so..." or, "Where's that pong coming from? I don't like that..." We
engage with things.
But to be mindful means that we notice the sound or the smell come into
consciousness, and then, instead of pushing the sense impression away or
holding on to it, we're aware of how the mind reacts. We stay centred
and notice that the impression and the feeling that arises comes, and
then goes. We can actually watch and feel the mind's inclination to
lunge out towards something that's pleasant, whereas before it would
simply lunge out, grasp and then proliferate about it. With mindfulness
we can notice the movement of the mind arise and then, when we don't
engage with it, we see it falling away, ceasing. We see that it comes
and goes in a wave pattern, and we begin to experience a steadiness
underneath the waves.
So in this respect mindfulness has two qualities. Firstly, it is
dispassionate; it has no particular ambition, it's neither rejecting or
ashamed of anything, nor is it fascinated by anything. Secondly, it
notices that things arise and cease.
If mindfulness covers the context in which apparent phenomena appear, we
get in touch with motivations and responses that would otherwise be
screened out, which are the source of the hindrances that can afflict
us. If we can cease engaging in a blind way, we develop perspective.
Rather than fighting with ourselves, saying we shouldn't feel this or
think that, we can just notice all of the sounds, the sights, or the
tastes or the touches, and what the mind makes of each impression. We
see that they are all of the same nature in that they arise and cease.
This is the function of mindfulness. It leads to inner composure and
freedom, because we're not rejecting anything, nor are we grasping after
anything. We see that it's like this. There is a levelness, a
groundedness in which the rich qualities of awareness can begin to
reveal themselves.
Effort in meditation is a vital factor. The Buddha said that right view,
right effort and right mindfulness accompany and develop every aspect of
the path. With mindfulness, we can experience the immediate results of
right and wrong effort - and of no effort. Is the mind just rambling on
all the time? Are we feeling strained or rigid?... These are signs of
wrong effort. Mindfulness helps to check and link up moments of right
effort to form a cohesive flow of bright energy and an abiding in a
skilful state. We become grounded in a meditation object and can study
it, as well as experience calm and well-being.
A systematic way of looking at this sense of groundedness is in terms of
mindfulness, and this has four bases or foundations. This is a means of
applying mindfulness in a specifically focussed way that will develop
both collected tranquillity - samadhi - and insightful wisdom. The first
and most easily accessible of these foundations is the body. When we're
doing formal meditation practice we keep bringing attention back to the
body - in its own terms. Notice what gives rise to the impression that
there is a body here. So this meditation centres on the breath, which is
a physical experience; or on the body walking up and down, or on it
sitting or standing. To do this in a sustained way - and to discard
other experiences - is the first foundation.
Now say we're meditating, sitting there, and coming back to its
associated sensations, but then the mind drifts off onto something that
seems more pressing or more urgent - worries, doubts. Even so to just
keep coming back to that foundation is a way of unravelling a lot of the
mental stuff of the day. Mindfulness is a moment-by-moment thing; the
main technique of such a practice is to set it up - to make that the
intention - then to keep re-establishing it. A lot of grief and distress
in meditation comes from expecting ourselves to be fully mindful of one
particular thing in an unbroken succession, when actually that isn't
always possible.
What is important to sustain is the coolness of it so that when the mind
wanders off, as it does almost incessantly at first, one can learn from
what happens then; three minutes later, or ten minutes later, when lost
in a train of thought and emotions, when suddenly 'Oh! Where am I?' We
recognise that we were supposed to be sitting here feeling our breath...
so then what happens?... we get irritated, thinking, 'I can't do this',
or 'Oh, shut up and get back to the breath!'
Now this is actually where a lot of learning can occur; not just through
sustaining the attention on the object, although that's important, but
also in how we go about doing that. I guess it's rather like training a
dog or puppy. We might want to train it to fetch a stick, or to stay at
heel. Of course, having it stay at heel may be one's aim, but recognise
that a vital aspect of the training - and in learning about yourself -
is how one reacts to the puppy continually running away. We can start to
replace the impatient and negative traits of the mind with more positive
and peaceful ones. We can ask, 'Where am I now?', 'Who is thinking?', or
'What about the breath?'.... This is a constructive means of
re-establishing awareness of the meditation object - in a patient way,
rather than bullying or nagging yourself. Then mindfulness is endowed
with some degree of wisdom and responsiveness, and it becomes
accordingly much firmer.
But all of this can only occur when we have established mindfulness as
our aim: mindfulness, to be dispassionate, to stay cool, to keep
reflecting. Recognise that things change, they are impermanent, don't
expect the mind to stay still in one place. Then one is less likely to
get stuck in the moods that occur, or jump to conclusions that it is
either a complete waste of time or that one is a failure. These ideas
and perceptions that come up also have the nature to arise and cease. In
training and bringing the mind to attention in this way, we begin to
discover that the judgements we make about ourselves and about life, the
apparent obsessions of the mind - the things we seem to be stuck with
permanently are, in fact, only impermanent things that we're not being
mindful of. One allows oneself to get caught in them because at that
moment, one is not bringing mindfulness to bear. But that can change
right now: mindfulness can be brought to bear, when there's the
intention to do so.
Two very common themes of body meditation are 'body-sweeping' and
'mindfulness of breathing', both of which require a patient and thorough
practice. I can only give a brief outline here. Body sweeping is the
practice of 'sweeping' awareness over the body and recognising the
quality of sensation at each moment. We can do this in a refined and
systematic way - say focussing on one toe at a time, and then the ankle
of one leg and so on; or in a simpler broader way, such as one leg, then
the other; or by 'touching' chosen points in the body in a regular
sequence - such as right elbow, right shoulder, left shoulder, left
elbow, right hip, left hip, and so on. It can also be good to notice one
point - say, a finger tip - and how it relates to the general flow of
sensations in the hand and the arm. Moving attention around in this way
helps to release blocks; numb patches become more sensitive, a balance
of body vitality is achieved.
With mindfulness of breathing, the field of attention is trained to
cover the entirety of the breathing as it is experienced in the present.
This may change in character but I think it is important to fully
receive what is felt, rather than search for what one thinks one should
feel. If we search too hard we establish trying, rather than awareness.
So to be receptive, and extend and tune that receptivity is more
conducive. Thus the mind is capable of knowing the physical, and then
the mental, feelings that are associated with the breathing. To return
to the foundations: mindfulness of feeling is the second. It refers to
the particular pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral physical or mental
feelings that arise. We can note the feeling in the body as pleasing, or
displeasing, or just nothing special. Or with the mind, we can notice
the feeling that may be associated with boredom, or low energy. Then,
rather than just getting involved in the state itself, we can just keep
observing the associated feeling. We may not like it. But rather than
just hanging on to that reaction, we can actually contemplate the not
liking - the unpleasant feeling - knowing it that way. So then, rather
than rejecting unpleasant feelings and trying to find a pleasant one, we
can realise that unpleasant feelings come and go, and do not have to be
sustained by mental reactions. The very quality of mindfulness achieves
a state of peace and non-attachment with unpleasant feelings.
So if we can establish a steady mindfulness through the range of
feeling, we will have overcome a major obstacle to meditation. This
takes us to the third foundation, which is the mind. We can be mindful
of the mind; whether the mind-set is gloomy, distracted, free, bright,
luminous, constricted - just getting a reference to the mood of the
mind. If we come to this, if we learn to get attentive to the mood - it
helps us to understand and to be aware of what the mind creates. So if
the mind-set is dark and gloomy, then naturally that's going to affect
our energies, the way we think, the way we talk; it's going to affect
the way we see and experience things. But if there can be mindfulness of
that mood, then we can recognise, say, feeling depressed, feeling
gloomy, feeling nervous and stay cool about that rather than fighting
it, justifying it, or getting involved with it. We see that mood also
has the nature to arise and cease.
The fourth foundation is called mindfulness of dhamma - meaning mental
processes. This means we begin to look at the personality, psychological
states, hang-ups, problems - our life situation - in an objective way.
When we look at it objectively we see that really it amounts to a set up
of wanting pleasure, wanting happiness, wanting peace, and being
irritated by things we don't like; sometimes feeling dullness, worry and
restlessness, or doubt.... There are these qualities, and they are
centred in the ground of personal interest; everyone's personal interest
- so they are universal qualities. So rather than making personal
problems out of these, we start to see them as impersonal. They come
around because of causes and conditions. That helps to remove the ground
which harbours these hindrances, rather than further add to the
intensity of identification.
The details of clearing the hindrances are based on this clear
perspective. This makes it possible to get in touch with the spiritual
qualities that will repel afflictive states and be conducive to deep
clarity. These enlightenment factors - mindfulness, investigation,
energy, joy, tranquillity, collectedness and equanimity - also are
dhamma. They are things rather than ourself. When mindfulness and clear
comprehension have developed to the point of being able to recognise,
develop and use these faculties to combat the hindrances, this can be
called satipanna - mindful wisdom. Mindfulness of dhamma evolves to
include everything.
As we train ourselves to witness and experience body, feelings and mind
and its states as impermanent, coming and going, changing, we find that
we have a more centred and reflective view upon our life. Instead of
seeing it in such fragmented, circumstantial and personal ways, we see
ourselves and others in very much the same light - there's this body,
there's that body, they all have the same qualities; a pleasant
equanimity arises. We arrive at a sense of universality which is
peaceful and compassionate.
Forest Sangha Newsletter:
October 1997, Number 42 and
January 1998, Number 43
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